Real Celebrity Families of California, North and South

“Mrs. Eastwood & Company,” a new reality series on E!, focuses on the family of Clint Eastwood. Above, from left, his daughters Francesca and Morgan and his wife, Dina.Credit
E!

Keeping up with the Kardashians got easier last year. Stretched over 16 episodes, the sixth season of the family’s flagship reality series on E! averaged just over 3 million viewers, down from 3.5 million the season before.

That didn’t stop E! from signing a deal for three more seasons of the young-skewing “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” beginning with the premiere of an 18-episode Season 7 on Sunday night, as well as any new spinoff projects the clan comes up with. (“Kendall and Kylie”? “Where’s Bruce”?)

It’s possible, though, between the stagnant ratings and the negative reaction to Kim Kardashian’s blink-and-you-missed-it married life with the basketball player Kris Humphries, to begin to see a Kardashian-free future. Perhaps with that in mind, E! and Bunim/Murray, one of the production companies behind “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” are introducing another reality series about a blended, privileged family run by a larger-than-life matriarch.

“Mrs. Eastwood & Company” makes its debut on Sunday night after “Kardashians,” and while the shows are in the same meretricious, let’s-make-a-buck mold, there are some important differences. Where “Kardashians” is all Southern California glitz and heavy eye makeup, “Eastwood,” starring Clint Eastwood’s wife, Dina, is Northern California casual and fresh-faced.

While the primary Kardashians have scattered to different houses and cities over the years, the central characters of “Eastwood,” including mother, daughter, stepdaughter, wily Korean housekeeper and exotic rescue animals, live under one roof in the same small town as the six-member South African a cappella boy band Mrs. Eastwood manages. (Hence “& Company.”)

But the biggest difference is between the men of the houses. Bruce Jenner, spouse of Kris Kardashian, has perfected the role of the comically henpecked and inconsequential husband; in the season premiere he confirms his insignificance by moving out for two days during which no one notices that he’s gone.

Photo

Kris, left, and Khloé of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” in Season 7.Credit
E!

On the other hand there’s Clint, the Mr. of “Mrs. Eastwood & Company,” and he serves as a mythic presence in that show, often invoked but rarely seen. (We’re told he’s in Atlanta for a film shoot.) In the pilot episode he’s onscreen for 75 seconds, flying in for a family dinner and sitting mostly silent, with an amused look on his face, while his wife and daughters chatter.

In his absence Mrs. Eastwood rules the roost with a manic, geeky energy that mortifies her daughter, Morgan. Much of her attention is focused on the band, Overtone, which she discovered while Mr. Eastwood was making “Invictus,” and particularly on its lead singer, Emile, whose looks and character she loudly defends in the face of her family’s wisecracks.

There’s an eyebrow-raising sexual dynamic there, though you could understand the desire for infatuation, or perhaps just distraction, in a woman whose world-famous husband has fathered seven children by five women.

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The first episode of “Mrs. Eastwood & Company” has a loose, somewhat rambling quality, as if the producers were still feeling around for characters and story lines, and it goes through dull stretches because no one we see — including Dina — is quite vivid enough to hold our attention on her own.

“Kardashians,” on the other hand, is by now a tightly stitched, fastidiously polished package, and while everything that happens feels staged and semi-scripted, it’s still easier to sit through than “Eastwood” — there’s a modicum of enjoyment in knowing the characters and anticipating the sitcom rhythms of their so-called lives.

It also has people who can keep you watching despite your best intentions of switching to “Masterpiece Mystery!” In the season premiere Kris is painted as a near monster for pressuring her daughter Khloé to take a DNA test — it has to do with refuting tabloid gossip about Khloé’s parentage — and before you know it, you’re actively rooting against her.

And then there’s Kim, the daughter whose sex tape and generous curves kick-started the show’s success back in 2007. She’s grown or been assembled into a precious object, gliding through the show with a beauty that’s no less impressive for looking vacuum-sealed. Some future episode will get a ratings bump when Ms. Kardashian’s current companion, Kanye West, makes a guest appearance. But in the insular world of “Kardashians,” he’ll be just another accessory.

A version of this article appears in print on May 19, 2012, on Page C6 of the New York edition with the headline: Real Celebrity Families of California, North and South. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe